New course focused on fraud awareness

Laura Ling, of Internal Audit, says that the best way to deter fraud is to increase the perceived risk of detection.

One of her favorite examples illustrating how this works is a true story of a person who was stealing cash from a register and didn’t realize she was being recorded. When investigators asked her if she was stealing, she said she wasn’t. When they told her they had her on tape, she said that if she had known there was a camera, she wouldn’t have stolen anything. Hence, the importance of visible controls.

“If people think they’re going to get caught, they’re less likely to commit fraud,” said Ling, who is teaching a new course on fraud awareness this spring. “Training people what to look for and having visible controls are the best ways to stress these things.”

The course, which will be taught several times this spring, will show participants what fraud looks like and make them aware of review and reconciliation red flags. It will be structured in four parts, covering what fraud is and why we should care about it, why people commit fraud and how to prevent it, how to detect fraud and sample case studies, and how to report fraud when one sees or suspects it.

The highly interactive course, though open to anyone, is primarily geared toward people who review and approve financial transactions, such as PCard approvers and other fiscal personnel at reconciliation tiers 1 and 2. The course is in the process of being added to the PRO3 Fiscal Management Certification.